I second this. Lemmy is written in Rust where as piefed is written in Python. When it comes to running a high-performance webserver, Lemmy has the advantage.
Comment on What features are missing from piefed, or, why aren't we reccommending piefed instead of lemmy?
avidamoeba@lemmy.ca 3 weeks ago
We have data on what it costs to run a sizeable instance of Lemmy and it’s not a lot. How does Piefed compare? Anyone starting an instance who envisions it growing large has to contend with this question.
There are now sizeable communities run on Lemmy instances that are reinforced by network effects. There needs to be a significant reason for them to migrate.
Sibshops@lemm.ee 3 weeks ago
poVoq@slrpnk.net 3 weeks ago
While theoretically true, the main bottleneck with Lemmy seems to be the database performance, so with both projects depending on PostgreSQL for that, I somewhat doubt that Piefed being written in Python will have much noticeable effect in reality.
msage@programming.dev 3 weeks ago
Postgres is so quick if you know how to use it…
nickwitha_k@lemmy.sdf.org 3 weeks ago
You don’t even need to know how to use it very well, in my experience.
nickwitha_k@lemmy.sdf.org 3 weeks ago
the main bottleneck with Lemmy seems to be the database performance, so with both projects depending on PostgreSQL
Postgres being a bottleneck is a first for me. Not saying it’s not possible, just… It’s postgres. Wondering if it’s more an issue with ORM, etc.
avidamoeba@lemmy.ca 3 weeks ago
Yeah, this would be my concern as well if I had to run it. Sure Python apps can be fast and most time is spend in IO, not compute, and if you’re running a profitable operation the exact cost of compute might not matter much. However if you’re running a non-profit service and you want it to be as dirt cheap as possible so it can be free for most users, then the cost of compute very much does matter.
rglullis@communick.news 3 weeks ago
If you want it to be “free to most users”, the cost of data storage and IO will completely dominate over the cost of CPU.
There are plenty of good arguments to prefer Rust over python for a distributed application, but “language efficiency” is not one of them.
Anyway, if you are biased in favor of Rust and want a decent argument to justify it, I will let you use ‘It’s easier to compile Rust to WASM and have the application run on the browser, while compiling python in a cross-platform way is a nightmare’, free of charge.
nickwitha_k@lemmy.sdf.org 3 weeks ago
Ease of cross-compiling is really one of my favorite things about Rust. It can run anywhere with little coaxing needed.
Die4Ever@retrolemmy.com 3 weeks ago
We have data on what it costs to run a sizeable instance of Lemmy and it’s not a lot. How does Piefed compare? Anyone starting an instance who envisions it growing large has to contend with this question.
I don’t think this is a major concern yet. The largest PieFed instance has 308 active users, 2nd place has 34. They’ve got room to grow.
piefed.fediverse.observer/list
People can start posting about PieFed on Reddit and see how the Reddit users react.
avidamoeba@lemmy.ca 3 weeks ago
But how is that not a concern if you’re interested in attracting more users? You run an instance with 500 users. Some thread on Reddit explodes and you get 1000-10000 users. If Piefed has poor scaling you might be unable to pay the bills for your now much larger instance. That’s not gonna be great for you or the new users.
Die4Ever@retrolemmy.com 3 weeks ago
I think it’s unlikely that they would attract such a large number of users with 1 post/comment on r/RedditAlternatives or something. Lemmy gets spammed everywhere and we usually don’t even gain 1000 users a day overall across all instances.
avidamoeba@lemmy.ca 3 weeks ago
Sure but does the rate of growth matter? The post asks about recommending Piefed instead of Lemmy. I presume the point is that the number of Piefed users would grow if we did that. So whether a thread produces 10, 1000, or 10000 users in a day, the number of users would grow over time. Then I think the question remains, if my Piefed instance costs $10/mo to run today, would it cost $100 with 10000 users or $1000, or more, or less?
Irelephant@lemm.ee 3 weeks ago
Its written in piefed, but I don’t think the overhead is too much because the bottleneck is DB performance.
It has support for lemmy’s protocol, so the network effect really isn’t an issue.Blaze@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 weeks ago
Its written in piefed,
Small lapsus ha ha
Irelephant@lemm.ee 3 weeks ago
Thanks.
rimu@piefed.social 3 weeks ago
We won't 100% know the answer to that until we get there. But in 2025 fear of a lack of CPU cores is NOT what keeps me awake at night.
Early performance results are positive. Check these links out:
https://join.piefed.social/2024/02/13/technical-performance-of-each-fediverse-platform/
https://join.piefed.social/2024/02/09/comparing-network-utilization-of-lemmy-kbin-and-piefed/
There are many many ways to ruin web app performance and choice of backend language is not really a big one. It's what you do with it that counts.
https://piefed.social is running on a low end VPS which costs $7.50 per month. Load average is about 1.45 during the busiest part of the day. Most of the load is caused by federating with lemmy.world and that won't increase as more users come on board.
PieFed is already really efficient with storage. After 16 months of operation, subscribed to every popular community, the piefed.social DB is 30 GB and the media storage is 28 GB. A Lemmy instance would be 10x that.
nickwitha_k@lemmy.sdf.org 3 weeks ago
Full disclosure: I like Python a lot and have written a lot of it.
That said, if not for my recent work experiences, I would be absolutely horrified at the idea of using Python for such a project. Between the type system and being interpreted, the performance and runtime issues are pretty painful. That and the historical greater dependence on external application servers really makes Python-based services something that really sucks to administer.
However, as I noted, I have also recently seen Python performing far faster than it has any right to with highly-optimized use of multi-processing and offloading the server stuff to Go.
I think I’m going to have to take a look at Piefed source this weekend.
rimu@piefed.social 3 weeks ago
Cool! Before you dive in, check this out https://join.piefed.social/docs/developers/
nutomic@lemmy.ml 3 weeks ago
These performance results are only from the browser side, but dont cover server performance. The database for lemmy.ml is 60 GB, and that is with 6 years of history. Not sure where your 10x claim comes from. The lemmy.ml server costs 70 Euros per month and doesnt have much load.
Blaze@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 weeks ago
I know the 0.03€ per user per month has been known for a while, but it still impresses me.
avidamoeba@lemmy.ca 3 weeks ago
That’s nice info, thanks! Do you know why the db difference?
rimu@piefed.social 3 weeks ago
I've never seen a Lemmy DB, sorry.
Emperor@feddit.uk 3 weeks ago
Can confirm. When we took over the running of feddit.uk migrating the images took forever as it was around 300GB.
monarch@lemm.ee 3 weeks ago
Thats super impressive. I need to take a look at hosting a personal instance just for the fun of it if its really what it costs.